Getting Flustered About Where to Report Bugs/Suggestions

[N3wb]

I'm fairly new to Linux Mint, been about 2+ weeks now. During my usage, I can see issues/have suggestions which I feel are small and easy to implement.
The issue is that I have no idea where to report these issues to, there's so many GitHub repositories and LM also uses some components from Ubuntu that I never feel sure about which category/repository should I file an issue. Also I don't want the developers to feel like I'm pestering them with filing issues that don't pertain to them (eg: filing kernel issues to someone who handles cinnamon gui).

Any guidance?

[Moem]

Does this help any?
http://projects.linuxmint.com/reporting-an-issue.html
https://linuxmint-troubleshooting-guide ... en/latest/

[N3wb]

Does this help any?
http://projects.linuxmint.com/reporting-an-issue.html
https://linuxmint-troubleshooting-guide ... en/latest/

In the first link, the second line: "First have a look at the bug tracker of Cinnamon or whatever project you find the bug in."

That's where I stop, because I'm not sure which project the issue falls under. Maybe if they had a central issue tracker (like JIRA) and then redirected it to their respective projects after vetting, I'd feel more confident about reporting them.

For example, let's say I have a problem with my WiFi led indicator behaviour and feel like it's fix is relatively easy to implement, does that fall under Cinnamon project or Linux kernel project?

[Moem]

For example, let's say I have a problem with my WiFi led indicator behaviour and feel like it's fix is relatively easy to implement, does that fall under Cinnamon project or Linux kernel project?

I'm not a developer, but that doesn't sound like it's at all related to Cinnamon to me. It sounds like a hardware issue.
But I can't stop myself from asking this, and please don't take it the wrong way: don't you think that if it were easy to fix, someone would have fixed it already?

[catweazel]

In the first link, the second line: "First have a look at the bug tracker of Cinnamon or whatever project you find the bug in."

That's where I stop, because I'm not sure which project the issue falls under.

Cinnamon is a component of Linux Mint, which is a distribution made up of other components. To report issues you need to identify the component then locate the project page for that component. Each piece of software is a component. Usually it means searching go-ogle to find the maintainer's page. It can be daunting for a newcomer but you get used to it after a little while. In most cases, and as an example, Ubuntu teams will push kernel bugs "upstream" to the kernel maintainers.

[N3wb]

@Moem : It's possible there are higher priority tasks the developers have undertaken which result in "relatively-easier-to-fix-issues" being resolved later. Like I remember the first suggestion I had was regarding showing the percentage for volume and brightness OSD below the bar and although it took me time to find where to implement it due to being unaware of how cinnamon works, I was able to do it. So I thought maybe the devs who already know the components they're building would find it easier to implement.

@catweazel : Maybe we could focus on making bug reporting less daunting / more accessible without being a hindrance to the devs? Let's say for these small issues which don't affect how the OS performs, one would be discouraged on the ROI for the time spent for reporting small issues. Something like report all issues related to Mint (version X) in some custom page with a set template and then someone in charge of maintaining bug-tracking can browse through and vet them to be sent to respective projects. I have no idea about the size of the dev team though...

[smurphos]

I have no idea about the size of the dev team though...

Small

They used to have a launchpad bug tracker for this - I understand it became unmanageable. They still struggle to cope with the volume of issues raised via Github. Personally I think it's a bit crazy to try and effectively support 36 different variations of Mint at one time (4 x 17.x each with 4 desktop environments, same for the 4 18.x's, plus 3 Mint 19s and LMDE 3). Plus Cinnamon is used by Arch/Manjaro/Fedora/Slackware/Debian users as-well.

Best bet with any problem/suggestion is come to the forums first.

[N3wb]

I have no idea about the size of the dev team though...

Small

They used to have a launchpad bug tracker for this - I understand it became unmanageable. They still struggle to cope with the volume of issues raised via Github. Personally I think it's a bit crazy to try and effectively support 36 different variations of Mint at one time (4 x 17.x each with 4 desktop environments, same for the 4 18.x's, plus 3 Mint 19s and LMDE 3). Plus Cinnamon is used by Arch/Manjaro/Fedora/Slackware/Debian users as-well.

Best bet with any problem/suggestion is come to the forums first.

Why do the developers have to support such a large base of variations of their OS considering their size? That is definitely a crazy amount to support.
At best the current and previous revision of their OS with desktop environments they really want to support. Or like windows 10, just ensuring everyone eventually hops to the latest build number and having 1/2 fallback build.

[smurphos]

Why do the developers have to support such a large base of variations of their OS considering their size? That is definitely a crazy amount to support.
At best the current and previous revision of their OS with desktop environments they really want to support. Or like windows 10, just ensuring everyone eventually hops to the latest build number and having 1/2 fallback build.

I'd agree - and effectively that ends up happening - someone using an older version of Cinnamon from Mint 17 to 18.3 reporting a bug with their version of Cinnamon will likely to be told to upgrade and report back if the bug is still an issue in current Cinnamon. I think it would only be a serious security related bug that would see fixes backported to older versions. Same applies to the other Linux Mint components that are directly maintained by the team.

But dealing with those bug-reports is time consuming and some users take offence or get frustrated at what is basically the only practical solution. Hardware specific bugs are also hard to deal with if the dev team don't have access to the problematic hardware to reproduce the bug. - I know that some of the donation money is used to purchase hardware to help reproduce hardware specific bugs.

[N3wb]

I'll say it's amazing the team has still been able to accomplish so much with what little amount of resources they have.
Also let's say if I implement some fix/feature and would like the devs to consider incorporating into their release, how would I go about it?

[smurphos]

Also let's say if I implement some fix/feature and would like the devs to consider incorporating into their release, how would I go about it?

If the fix/feature is in a component hosted on the Mint github you can submit a Pull request basically asking for your code change to be added to the master.

[N3wb]

Also let's say if I implement some fix/feature and would like the devs to consider incorporating into their release, how would I go about it?

If the fix/feature is in a component hosted on the Mint github you can submit a Pull request basically asking for your code change to be added to the master.

So technically we can post an issue/suggestion and then fix/implement and submit for merge request?

[smurphos]

So technically we can post an issue/suggestion and then fix/implement and submit for merge request?

Yep - for example - one my first reported issues I then went on to fix here - https://github.com/linuxmint/mintsystem/pull/70

You don't necessarily have to post an issue first. If you've got an improvement you can just submit a pull request.

Do have a read of - https://linuxmint.gitbooks.io/developer ... s/content/